Şahika Tekand

Şahika Tekand — Biography

Born in 1959, Şahika Tekand abandoned an initial course of legal studies to train as an actor in the theatre program of Dokuz Eylül University's Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Stage and Screen Arts, later finishing a doctorate in that same discipline. She stepped onto stage and screen in 1984, working with troupes such as Dostlar Tiyatrosu and appearing in several films of that era.

She set up her own acting workshop in 1988, and two years later she and husband Esat Tekand renamed the group Studio Oyuncuları; there she has coached many now-recognizable performers, lectured at several universities, and spent years shaping an approach she calls the "Performative Staging and Acting Method", which she hopes to publish as a book. On screen, she is credited in the 1997 film Akrebin Yolculuğu, Yengeç Sepeti (1994), Sarı Tebessüm (1992), and, from 1987, Su da Yanar, Anayurt Oteli and Afife Jale, plus 1985's Adı Vasfiye. She is recognized for plays she wrote and staged herself, among them Karanlık Korkusu, Evridike'nin Çığlığı, Oidipus Nerede? and Gergedanlaşma, plus a staged adaptation drawn from Samuel Beckett's Play; her honors include a 1993 Special Jury Prize from the Ankara Film Festival for Sarı Tebessüm, a 2013 Afife Theatre Award for lighting design on Oyun, and a 2017 Afife Theatre Award for directing Godot'yu Beklerken.